DETROIT — The United Auto Workers and Detroit’s three car companies are likely to miss a deadline tonight to agree on new contracts, three people briefed on the bargaining said Tuesday.
There are many issues to settle, most involving pay, before the current four- year contracts expire at 11:59 p.m., said the sources, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private.
Bargainers with Ford Motor Co. and the union agreed Tuesday to keep talking indefinitely after the deadline passes, and workers will stay on the job. Talks at General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC also are expected to go on after the contracts expire, which is normal procedure in bargaining with the UAW. In 2007, when the last contracts were signed, negotiations stretched into October and even November at Ford.
One of the people briefed on the talks said bargainers at GM could still reach agreement by the deadline, but much work remains.
The contract talks will determine wages and benefits for 111,000 union workers at the companies, and they also set the bar for wages at auto-parts companies, U.S. factories run by foreign automakers and other manufacturers, which employ hundreds of thousands more.
Bargainers at Ford are far behind the other two companies and have barely begun discussing pay issues. Workers at GM and Chrysler can’t strike over wages under the terms of the companies’ government bailouts. Ford workers have no such restriction.
